Girl (acoustic) - SYML

Chapter Twenty Four: It Wasn't Just A Project

Mondays are always weird. But they're even weirder when you've supposedly been expelled just a few weeks before and suddenly you're walking the halls again where everyone's whispering and staring at you, probably wondering whose dick you had to suck to get back in.

It's not the first time I've been stared at or whispered about. When I first dyed my hair blue back in freshman year, I'd been the talk of the school for two weeks before everyone moved on to something more interesting. Since then I haven't really had any of the spotlight. Until now that is.

"She's alive! She's alive!" Sam said in a thick English accent when I approached. He laughed when he was given the finger. "Look at you. Rising from the ashes like a phoenix. We just can't seem to get rid of you here."

"You can't get rid of me that easy. Did she come in yet?" I scanned the hall for any signs of Nora but saw none.

"If you mean Nora then no. I haven't seen her yet this morning but I doubt she knows you're coming back. The only ones who know were you, me and your family."

"And now 200 other students know too." Whenever I made eye contact with someone, they'd quickly look away as if my eyes could set them on fire.

"Don't worry about it. They'll be over it by lunchtime-also before I forget, did you come up with a plan B for the English project?"

I did. Spent my entire weekend working on it without even taking a single break (except to use the bathroom and eat but that's beside the point). It turned out exactly how I hoped it would. Now I just had to figure out a way to let Nora know that I accidentally destroyed our model without pissing her off even more than she already was.

"You're quiet so you must've came up with a plan," Sam said with a grin. "What does your diabolical plan consist of?"

The first bell rang before I could answer. "If you don't hear from me after class, Nora probably Avada Kedavra'd my ass."

He looked confused by my words. "She did what? What does that even mean?"

I just pat his back reassuringly. "It was nice knowing you, Samwise."

You'd swear to god it was like someone died when I stepped into English class. It suddenly went silent; you couldn't hear a damn thing apart from the ticking clock on the wall. Even Yelchin went quiet for a moment before clearing his throat to divert the attention back to him.

"Welcome back, Laney. Take your seat next to Nora. As for everyone else, please ready your book reports as they're being presented today. We'll try to get through as many as we can today."

Nora ignored me, which was expected. It was only when my bag dropped to the floor did she notice that I didn't have our model with me. Her head turned ever so slightly in my direction and she spoke in a low whisper.

"Where's the model?"

Okay. Moment of truth. I'll tell her what happened and quickly back it up with the plan B so the blow wouldn't be as bad and everything would be fine.

"Where's the model, Laney?" Nora sounded anxious now, her eyes on the verge of full on panic.

I took a deep breath. "Here's the thing....I broke it."

Her jaw dropped to the floor. Her hands, which were clenched on either side of her, flew up to her mouth in shock.

"Laney! How could you?!" Her voice was muffled behind her hands.

"I know. I'm fucking dumb-"

"That's an understatement!" The tears were now flowing freely from her eyes. "Oh god Laney. Why? Why did you do it?!"

There wasn't an excuse for what I did. That much I knew. So I had to be completely honest with her. "I was mad. You weren't listening to me and I reacted in the worst way possible. So I'm sorry if this ruins anything we had between us-"

"Nora and Laney. You're our lucky first contestants of the morning," Yelchin cut in. I couldn't tell if I was more relieved that he interrupted or annoyed.

Right away I could see that Nora was crying into her hands. Her muffled sobs might've been silent to everyone else but to me, they were loud echoes in a dark and empty place.

"Nora? Are you ready to present your book report?" Mr. Yelchin asked us again.

Before answering, Nora wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. "N-no. We don't have anything to present."

Yelchin cocked his head. "What do you mean by that?"

Fuck. For an English teacher, he clearly doesn't understand plain English. "Yes we do, sir. I have something here that we can present."

Nora seemed surprised by this as I made my way up to the front of the class. My plan to tell her what I did was going to be a surprise to her as well as everyone else.

"Nora and I did our report on Harry Potter-" The class snickered. "-and the Philosopher's Stone. Not my first choice but once I began reading, it was surprisingly interesting. If it hadn't been for Nora's audio tapes of her reading, I doubt I would've managed to get through the book on my own. Can I use your computer?"

Yelchin signed into his desktop and moved so that I could take his place at the front of the room. Like most people, I hated getting up in front of a group to talk so I got extremely nervous once I was up there. Everyone's attention was on me now, Nora's included.

"Hey. Uh....so the book that Nora and I chose to do a project on was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone-" The class snickered again but I kept on talking anyway. "We originally did a model of Hogwarts but due to recent events, I had to resort to a plan B which is this little guy here."

I held up a USB for the class to see. Nora, whose facial expression had been grumpy for the past five minutes, now looked confused and fascinated at the same time.

"While we were doing our report, we'd sometimes take a break and just mess around a little bit. Nora didn't know this at the time it was happening but I'd record her-or us, just having fun and talking about whatever. So I put together some of the footage and made a short film about our time during the project." I shrugged as I slip the USB into Mr. Yelchin's computer. "Enjoy. I guess."

I opened the file. When it began to play, someone had turned off the lights to the classroom to give it a more movie-like feel and I have to admit that it boosted my confidence a little bit. The class actually looked interested in what I had created.

It opened with a 90's static like effect, transitioning into Nora sitting on her bed with the book in her hands. She never looked up once but talked away as she read her book.

"If I got really rich and famous through writing, I think the first thing I'd buy myself is a new bookshelf to hold all my books and collectibles," she nodded at her statement.

I snickered on film. "Why not just buy yourself an entire library? Or a museum?"

She looked up at me through the top rim of her glasses. She still didn't notice me filming. "Fair enough. I was thinking of something more subtle that didn't look like I was boasting about how much money I had. But that works too."

The class chuckled. Nora looked shocked more than anything else but she seemed to be enjoying this....I think. It was hard to tell.

Then the film showed Nora's backyard. She was running around with her wand in her hand, pretending to cast spells and thanks to my awesome editing software, I managed to add some VFX where blue sparks shot out of the tip of her wand. The entire class said "whoa!" and "ooh!" including Yelchin. Judging from the look on his face, he was impressed with what he was watching.

We were then sitting at the restaurant at the Harry Potter resort. Nora was happily eating a sandwich while watching the people around her. When she finally turned to look at me, she froze in surprise and pointed to me.

"You're not recording me, are you? You better not be filming me, Laney Rubia," she tried to sound threatening but ended up just sounding super cute.

"I swear I'm not!" I laughed. "There's wifi here. Who would've thought there'd be Internet access in the wizarding world?"

The class laughed at this, even Nora. She was now smiling up at the Smartboard, her eyes twinkling as she continued to watch the film.

The next part was where it got heavy. I couldn't remember when it was but we were sitting in her room doing up some more of the model when I started asking her random questions.

"Why do you love Harry Potter so much?" I asked her.

She paused for a moment. "I'm not sure. I guess growing up I didn't have any friends so I resorted to the fictional kind to keep me company. Once I started reading the books, I fell so in love with them and the characters that I wanted to live more in that world than I did in this one."

Film me quickly glanced into the camera then back to Nora again. She wasn't even paying attention to the phone as it recorded her speech.

"Middle school was tolerable. I could dress up in my merchandise without many complaints but it was high school that made my life a living hell." She sniffled but didn't cry. "All of a sudden it was like an invisibility cloak was thrown off me and suddenly I was a target for everyone's fun and games. I wasn't hurting anyone so why did they think it was okay to hurt me?"

She continued on some more. "Everyday something would happen to me. Whether I'd get tripped up, someone would spill something on me or cut my hair without me noticing, it was never a dull day for me. The worst part was that I couldn't tell my parents because they couldn't afford to move and send me to a different school. And what would be the point of that anyway? The same stuff would happen anywhere else like it does to me here. So all I can do really is cry when no one's looking and smile when they are."

It was mind blowing, the effect her words had on the classroom. Everyone had sunken down into their seats looking guilty as all hell because they knew who they were and they'd just been called out by their victim.

The final scene was of Nora sitting down in my room, just laughing and giggling at whatever stupid shit we had been laughing at during that moment. It played in slow motion so her laugh seemed to go on forever but I didn't mind. Her smile was one of the few things in life that if I was stuck looking at it forever, then I'd be okay with that. More than okay.

Finally, the film ended with one simple word that made the entire room widen their eyes. Even Yelchin's eyes seemed to have grown twice their size but there was also a soft smile on his face.

Prom?

Everyone turned to look at Nora. I think they expected an answer right then and there honestly. But I didn't. I actually didn't expect an answer at all.

"I-" She sputtered. "I don't know what to say...."

I waved a hand. "That's okay. You don't have to say anything. At least we passed something in for the project, right?"

She didn't have time to say anything more because I grabbed the USB and my bag before storming out of the classroom. The hallway was bare (thank god) so it was going to be a quick and straight getaway to the main entrance.

"Laney!"

Or so I thought.

The sound of Nora's loafers echoed down the hall towards me. I didn't have to turn around to know she was standing a few feet behind me. I could almost sense her; the smell of her shampoo found its way to my nose, as did her closeness; the way her energy danced across the surface of my skin. Like sparks of electricity.

She finally caught up to me, her face red from exertion. "Hey. About what happened back there-"

"I know. I fucked up big time. My anger got the best of me and I destroyed the project we were working so hard on-"

"Laney. It's okay. I'm not mad."

I looked up into her eyes. "You're not?"

Her smile was warm. "No. But for a few minutes I was because I wasn't expecting the little film you made. That caught me by surprise."

"Yeah," I breathed out a sigh. "Sorry. It was the best I could do on short notice."

Nora chuckled at this. "Don't worry about it. Now come on. Let's go talk in the dugout."

Since it was only first period, there was no one outside; not even the gym class students were on the field, so the dugout was the perfect spot to get a little bit of privacy. Our old seagull buddies were just chilling in the field while squawking and pecking at whatever it was on the ground. Who knew, really. Could've been week old food out there.

"What do you know. Back to where it all began," Nora pointed out. "Look. Your paper bag is even still here where you tossed it."

I doubted it was even my paper bag but I went along with it anyway. "Huh. Would you look at that. Weird."

Things were getting awkward fast. It wasn't until five minutes of silence did Nora finally speak up again.

"Listen. What you did back in English class was absolutely amazing. Definitely better than our lame model. How did you even come up with that?"

I almost didn't want to admit that it was mostly Sam's idea but I couldn't take all the credit. "Sam. He told me to play to my strengths and making movies is one of them so...." I shrugged. "I really am sorry about the model though. You worked so hard on it and I just went full on Godzilla on it. I'm surprised you're not completely pissed off at me."

Nora snickered. "I told you not to worry about it. The short film was much more interesting anyway even if I had no idea you were filming at the time. Come to think of it, I should've known you were up to something every time you had your phone out."

I blushed at this. "You were too absorbed with everything anyway. I don't know if you noticed but once you're in the zone, it's almost impossible to get you out of it."

We both laughed at how true this was. The seagulls even laughed too, squawking loudly like they were trying to prove that they could be louder than us.

"So how long?" She said suddenly.

"Uh....care to go into details?"

She poked my arm. "How long have you liked me?"

Oh. So we're going into that conversation now. "Um....since maybe before we went to the Harry Potter resort? Your kiss kinda made it worse-but a good worse. I think that made sense...."

She breathed out a sigh. "I see. So around the same time I developed a crush on you."

"Wait what?" My eyebrows probably shot off my face because of how high and fast I raised them. "You liked me for that long? Why didn't you say something?"

Her face turned red. "I thought I did by kissing you during New Years. Or was that not straight forward enough for you."

I seemed to have found this funny because I was laughing my ass off while she looked at me like I lost my mind. "We're far from being straight, Nora. Far from it."

The crinkles around her eyes appeared when she smiled broadly. "I guess there really are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other," Nora shrugged with a smile.

I looked deeply into her pretty blue eyes. "And doing a book report together is one of them."

She then leaned forward and her lips were on mine, warm and familiar and full of a kindness I had never known before. Her hands seemed to find their way up to my face, cupping my cheeks to deepen the kiss even more.

"Yes," she whispered against my mouth. "My answer is yes."

"Yes to what," I barely got to say as her lips kissed me again.

"To prom, silly. I'll go to prom with you. I'd go anywhere with you, Laney. Just as long as you don't purposely get into fights along the way."

I laughed into her shoulder. How I ended up kissing the soft skin below her jaw is beyond me but here I was anyway. "Aw come on. Where's the fun in that?"

"Laney!"

"Okay!" I raised my hands. "I promise. Pinky swear. Scout's Honor. All that crap."

Seemingly happy, she pecked me on the lips again. "So does this mean we're official? I don't know how relationships work. I'm not even on Facebook so I can't really change my relationship status."

"Well. You're in luck. Neither am I. I guess we tell everybody the old fashioned way." I got to my feet and began to Floss. "We show up to prom together and blow everyone's socks off."

Nora eyed my dancing. "I hope you don't plan on dancing like that. I won't associate myself with anyone who thinks dancing like that is cool. What will everyone think?"

I laughed, taking her hand and hauling her to her feet. "Let's forget what everyone else thinks. It's our night. Let's make it special."

The bell for second class rang, signalling us to go back inside. We held hands the entire time in the hallway which earned us our fair share of whispers and stares. But none of that mattered anymore.

This English project started out as a book report but it ended up being so much more. It wasn't just a project. It was about finding ourselves but more importantly we had found each other when we needed someone the most. I ended up getting both an A and won the girl in the end.

But our story was only just beginning.